


The Light In My Eyes Is Strange

by such_heights



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-26
Updated: 2008-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/such_heights/pseuds/such_heights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose knows the answer and it makes it hard to ask. "What have I done to you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light In My Eyes Is Strange

Rose is breathing in the air of the TARDIS, the taste of the vortex lingering in the hollows of her mouth like sweet spices. It's these little, monumental things that she has remembered, the way this corridor arches upwards seemingly into infinity, that room that greets you with lilting melodies you didn't know you'd always been longing for. She remembers the strangeness, the beautiful otherworldliness of this blue box of dreams, but she had forgotten just how much it resonates with a sense of home.

She walks through the hallways, drinking it in, until she finds that her path has wound back to the communal spaces, to a cosy kitchen where they've all made camp for the night, drinking tea or whiskey as required and swapping war stories. She smiles as she hears Donna mid-diatribe, punctuated by Martha's amused disbelief and Mickey's rumbling laughter.

The door creaks open, and Jack steps out into the hallway. "Hey," he says. "Was wondering where you'd slipped off to."

Rose hasn't had time to comprehend all the things that have happened since they saw the first star die and all of this madness began, and so it's only now she's started to let certain things sink in, not least of which the fact that Jack is standing right there when she never dreamed she'd see him again.

He's staring at her too, and maybe the same things are running through his head, but then he smiles, bright enough to light up a solar system, and sweeps her up in a rib-bruising hug. He plants a kiss in her hair, murmuring her name. "You," he tells her, setting her down and holding her shoulders, "are a sight for sore eyes."

"Hello," she says, grinning from the memory of their first meeting.

"Hello," he repeats, laughing. "So. Rose Tyler, back from a parallel world. Pretty flash, I gotta say."

"Well," she says with nonchalance, "had to find something to do, you know. What about you, keeping busy?"

"Oh yeah, this and that. Heroically saving the world from time to time."

"That's what I like to hear." Rose pauses. "How much time?"

Jack shrugs. "A while. Why, you saying I look old?"

"No, Jack, really. How long? I saw you survive that Dalek, and that's happened before. Because I did that, before, on the gamestation, and--" She breaks off, biting her lip, because she knows the answer and it makes it hard to ask. "What have I done to you?"

In the moments before he replies, Rose finds herself really looking at him for the first time, seeing the age he's gathered - not on his face, but in the new slope of his shoulders, the history he wraps around himself. She can't quite meet his eye.

"You saved my life," he says with a soft laugh. "You just had to go and pull all the stops out, do it a little too thoroughly."

Rose has seen more than enough to know that what she's given Jack is no gift, and she can only pray that he doesn't wake every morning feeling its curse, because longevity means losing everything, and even the Doctor will die one day.

"When I was in the other world," she says instead, "when we were tracing timelines and measuring causality, we found all sorts of things - loops and eddies, the flotsam of time, everything that was converging on Donna. But in this universe, there was this - this mark, a stopper in events."

"Like a fixed point."

Rose nods. "Exactly like that."

Jack spreads his hands wide. "Guilty as charged."

Rose can feel the horror of it, knows in her guts that it's wrong, that this isn't what's ever supposed to happen. "I'm so sorry, I really am."

"What, why? The universe seems to like having me around." Rose attempts a laugh, but Jack sighs. "No, but really, it's okay. Not exactly what I had in mind when I came onboard with you two, but-- I've made peace with it. Serenity about unchanging things or something, right? Unless - unless you can change me. I know the Doctor said he took the power out of you--"

"It's not like you can unsee the vortex, really." Rose gestures helplessly, because what she's trying to articulate may just be beyond words. "When the stars went out, and I was shifting through the void, it was like . . . I could see everything, again. And in the dark space of a collapsing universe, I sent a message, to Donna and the Doctor - bad wolf, do you remember? I don't know what that meant, then, and I don't know what that means now that reality's restored." She falls silent, passing a hand across her face.

"Rose." Jack's voice is low, his hand warm against her neck, and now he really is just as she remembers, the heartbeat in his palms steady against her pulse.

"You've got time itself running through you," she says with new clarity, "and it keeps bringing you back. The heart of the TARDIS, it's got the same stuff that's at the core of you."

"Figures. There's not going to be much way of stopping that, is there?"

She places her hand over his. "Maybe. Maybe there's a way to draw it out of you. But it's got to be the only thing that's still holding you together - it'd kill you. I'd kill you." She doesn't ask how many times he's died. She catches snapshots anyway, the war and sorrow and what feels like a thousand years of earth.

Jack frowns and slowly moves his hand away, still holding onto hers. "Then I won't ask again."

She falls back into herself, the insight dissipating. And in spite of it all, she can't help but still smile at the sight of him, a vivid reminder of all that time they shared. She ducks her head and laughs. "Who would have thought, that long ago? The things we've done since then."

Jack motions towards the kitchen door. "So come back in. Tell us a story."

They walk inside. Sarah Jane shifts her chair to make room, and Martha exchanges a smile with Jack. The Doctors are elsewhere, have been for some time. Mickey is talking about the parallel London, the vagaries and differences, like the entirely inexplicable non-existence of Eastenders and Boris Johnson's worryingly successful ongoing prime ministerial campaign.

Jack makes them all tea while Rose leans against his arm, smiling. When they sit down they tell stories until their hearts ache.


End file.
